Herbert's Tale
by Radar-rox
Summary: When cleaning up the flat, the guys and Tara are confronted with Herbert, the dust bunny  OF DOOM!


**A little light-hearted oneshot to use up some of the short ideas I had floating around in my notebook, and to appease you all before my next, considerably longer and darker fic. I shall say no more.**

Back and knees aching, Tara stared at her nemesis. 'Right, this is it, goodbye. There's no way you're gonna survive this.'

She snapped her rubber gloves a little, and pointed the spray bottle at the stubborn stain in the corner, screaming a battle cry as she sprayed, then scrubbing it vigorously.

Tara had declared the night before that as she was spending more and more time at the flat, and in light of that fact that she had rights as a woman, she thought it was about time that the place had 'a damn good thrashing. I mean, clean.'

They each had different tasks, and while Tara was cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, Howard was tackling the living room, and Bollo was tidying the loft. Naboo had given his room a quick sweep, although it didn't really need it – everyone knew that he liked to keep his room neat and tidy – and was now tidying the kitchen drawers before Tara cleaned them.

When Howard and Tara had been alone earlier, they had worked their way through a short repertoire of songs, including 'whistle while you work', 'wouldn't it be loverly' and 'the music of the night', which had turned into a powerful duet, complete with dance, until they were discovered by Bollo. They quickly returned to their work, a little embarrassed.

Vince, being of a rather flighty nature, had been given lots of little jobs to do, and was now emptying the bins. 'Naboo, why's there an empty can of spray cream in your bin?' he asked, lifting it from the top of the pile.

Tara banged her head on the top of the cupboard she was partly inside of, cleaning.

'Oh, it was um, litter, on the street, so I picked it up. Shaman duty.'

Vince shrugged a little, then set the bin down at the top of the stairs.

'Vince, don't just leave it there, they've gotta go down in the black bin!' cried Howard.

'I thought it was the green one?' said Naboo.

'No, that's recycling.' Said Tara from the cupboard.

'What about glass then?'

'That's the other green one.'

'Look, whatever it is, all the other bins have got to go into one big one, of whatever colour, you can't just leave them lying around up here.' Said Howard

'Alright, alright, keep your moustache on!' Vince collected the rest of the bins and headed downstairs with them, finally figuring out which bin was which, and emptying everything into the right one.

Tara finally emerged from her cupboard. 'I'm bloody sick of this. Anyone wanna swap, there's only a couple left.' She said, standing up and stretching. 'I need a shower as well, I'm a mess.'

'You're beautiful.' Said Naboo, kissing her briefly on the cheek before returning to his cutlery drawer.

'You only want me for my good looks!' Tara cried dramatically, placing the back of her hand against her forehead as she did so.

'Yeah, you haven't got much else to offer really.' Joked Naboo.

'True' Tara laughed.

'I'll swap if you want Tara, there's not much left of this to do.' Offered Howard, as Vince arrived back upstairs and flopped onto the sofa. 'Can we have a break, I'm knackered'

'I would like to point out Vince that so far today you've hoovered the bedrooms, then you had a crisp sandwich, then you started to sweep and mop the porch but you had to stop because you were getting too dirty, then you had a break to watch Blackadder on my laptop, and you've just spent four minutes gathering up the bins, which to many would seem like not a very taxing morning. I would point this out, if I weren't gasping for a drink myself.' Said Tara, sitting heavily next to him.

She picked up one of Vince's many mirrors, which had been lying discarded on the coffee table, and plucked at her hair. 'I'm bored with this colour now, I might change it…'

'What to?'

'Dunno… hey, remember when it was blue?'

'Oh yeah! You looked like a smurf.'

'Shut up, I liked it like that. Won't do it like that again though, I was got fed up of people asking if I'd come here from the seventies.'

'What colour is it naturally?' asked Naboo, sitting next to her and thinking that how come after all this time he didn't know his girlfriend's natural hair colour.

'Its this, pretty much.' She said – her hair was currently dark brown. 'I just get bored with it, dye it a lot. It was purple quite a while back actually, before it was black, I quite liked it like that.'

'Yeah, that was quite good.' Agreed Vince.

Tara's hair woes solved, they had a quick cup of tea, then it was back to work, once they'd forced Vince into a pair of marigolds for him to clean the fridge.

Howard had done most of the living room, so all Tara really had left to do was dust a few shelves and vacuum the rug and under the sofa. She shifted the coffee table out of the way as Howard moaned from in front of the last kitchen cupboard. 'God, this is backbreaking. You don't wanna swap back do you Tara?'

'Not a chance mate.' She grinned, starting to heave the sofa back. 'Bloody hell, look at the state of it under here!'

The dust was so thick it looked as though no-one had cleaned it for about twenty years, and Tara was amazed no-one had thought to have a peek under there and maybe sweep a hoover around before now. _Bloody men._

'Eurgh, that's horrible.' Said Vince, and the others agreed.

'I don't get it, I only swept under there.. well, it was a couple of months ago I s'pect, but still.' Said Naboo, puzzled.

As Tara advanced on the mess with the hoover, it began to move and join together, until there in the living room stood a four-foot ball of dust and dirt. It looked a little like a bunny. As dust bunny, to be precise.

'Christ!' cried Vince, getting out of the huge rabbit's way. Naboo shuffled over to stand protectively in front of Tara, who stepped aside a little to get a better view.

'I am a dust bunny.' It said, before adding 'OF DOOM!'

The words would probably have sounded more threatening had they not come from a rabbit, which despite being made of dust, dirt, fluff, dead skin cells and two old buttons which seemed to be eyes, was still rather cute.

'What sort of doom?' asked Naboo.

'What? You know.. sort of… doom! Death, destruction, all that business.' Said the rabbit, seeming a little unsure.

'Oh. Why?'

'What do you mean why?' he cried. 'I'm a dust bunny of doom, its what I do!'

'Yeah, but why?'

The bunny's name was Herbert. Its best to mention this now, as there may not be time later.

Herbert sighed. 'It's a bit of a long story.'

'Sit down and tell us about it.' said Vince, keen to avoid more work. 'Cuppa tea?'

'Do you have any green tea? I do so enjoy that.'

'Um.. sure.' Said Vince, not quite sure of how a dust bunny would have gotten hold of green tea.

Herbert sat down and twitched his nose while Vince made the tea.

'I wasn't always an evil dust bunny y'know.' Said Herbert. 'I used to be a good dust bunny, I- have you heard of the Easter Bunny?'

'Course.'

'Yes, that was me for a time. I enjoyed it, bringing joy and cavities to small children. But one day, my calling took me to the seaside, and oh! It was beautiful, shimmering blue waters lapping lightly at the shore, wet rocks glinting in the sunlight. I wished to step into the sea, frolic in the waves, but alas, I could not.'

'Why not?' asked Tara.

'There is an ancient rule, that as long as there are animals in the sea, sky, or on land, rabbits of any kind cannot go into water.'

'Why not? Ancient curse? A Prehistoric rabbit had a water-related heartbreak?'

'No, nothing like that – we look like total prats trying to swim. To let anyone else see that would be too much of an embarrassment.'

'Right.'

'And so, the only way for me to be able to go into the sea would be for me to destroy every animal in the world, so I could experience the undoubtable pleasure of swimming in the sea, if only I could know it just one time. I don't really want to have to kill everyone you understand, I- I quite like the other animals, its just this sea thing.. sometimes it gets me down, but.. what can you do? I really feel that I must swim in the sea, I don't know why, but I must, and if this is the only way to do that…'

The others nodded understandingly. Even though they were still aware that the rabbit wanted to kill them, he had a way of explaining things that made them feel rather 'oh, well, if you put it like that..'

'So I, suppose I should.. its nothing personal you understand.' He said keenly, and they nodded. 'I just-'

However, at that moment, there was a large noise behind Herbert. Bollo had reappeared from sorting out the loft, and was now wielding the hose from the vacuum in Herbert's direction. Before any of them could say anything, poor Herbert was sucked into the hoover and apparent oblivion.

'Bollo!' they yelled in unison.

'What?' he grunted.

**Please review!**


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